1. Personality Theory
Chapter 12: Learning Theories of Personality: The S-R Theory of John Dollard and Neal Miller

2. An Introduction to S-R Theory
The distinction between content and process in theories of personality
Psychoanalysis and its derivative theories are content theories.
They propose structural concepts (e.g., id, ego, self-dynamism) that are hypothetical components of personality.
They are concerned with the content of mental life, both unconscious and conscious.

3. Learning theories are concerned with process - how behaviour is learned, maintained, and changed.
Radical behaviourist theories focus only on observable behaviour
Other learning theories of personality (S-R theory, the theories of Rotter and Bandura) make inferences to covert processes.

4. Learning theories have profited from the clinical evidence of content theories
e.g., the nature of personality disorder, details of child development.
S-R theory originated in the 1930s with Dollard, Miller, and other members of the Yale Institute of Human Relations.
It was based on the learning theory of Yale professor Clark Hull.

5. Its antecedents were Dollard’s Caste and Class in a Southern Town, Dollard et al.’s Frustration and Aggression, and Miller and Dollard’s Social Learning and Imitation.
Frustration and Aggression introduced the approach, based on principles and conditions of learning.
Frustration and Aggression proposed that frustration is a significant condition for aggression.
Many studies confirmed this basic relation.

6. Dollard and Miller took the principles-conditions idea and the theory of learning to social psychology, studying imitation in the acquisition of social behaviour.
In 1950, they turned to personality, disorders of personality, and the process (psychotherapy) by which normality is learned.

7. John Dollard John Dollard was born in 1900 in Menasha, Wisconsin.
After the death of his father, his mother moved with the children to Madison, WI, so the children might attend the university there.

8. He earned a BA at 22, then worked at the university
Met physicist Max Mason, who took an interest in Dollard and brought him to the University of Chicago when he became the university president.
He obtained his PhD in sociology in 1931.
Greatly influenced by the Chicago sociologists, especially Edward Sapir

9. Awarded a travelling fellowship, he went to Germany to study psychoanalysis
Completed a training analysis with Hanns Sachs, and was supervised in the treatment of control patients by Karen Horney.
Invited to join Yale Institute of Human Relations as research associate

10. An extraordinary career at Yale in sociology, psychology, and psychoanalysis
Among his books: Caste and Class in a Southern Town; Frustration and Aggression (with Miller and others); Social Learning and Imitation (with Miller); Personality and Psychotherapy (with Miller); Steps in Psychotherapy (with Auld and White)

11. Honoured as a teacher and pioneer, he died in 1980.

12. Neal Miller Neal Miller was born in Milwaukee, WI, in 1909.
His family moved to Washington state where his father became professor of educational psychology.
He earned a BA at University of Washington (1931), an MA from Stanford (1932), and a PhD from Yale (1935) under learning theorist Clark Hull.

13. He returned to Yale and the Institute of Human Relations
Granted the same fellowship as Dollard, he went to Vienna in to study psychoanalysis.
He was analyzed by Heinz Hartmann.
He returned to Yale and the Institute of Human Relations
He conducted experimental studies of S-R theory hypotheses, developing the theory and writing collaboratively with Dollard and others.

14. Went to Rockefeller University in 1966 to study the physiological basis of drives and the voluntary basis of autonomic responses, important in biofeedback.
Awarded the National Medal of Science in 1964.
Died at age 92 in 2002

15. Emphases The S-R theory mantra: drive, cue, response, reward.
Learning requires:
The arousal of a drive.
Cues or stimuli that identify the response to be made, where, and when.
The response when drive is aroused and cues are present.
That the response be rewarded.

16. Drives motivate behaviour through the arousal of drive stimuli.
Hunger, thirst, and sexual arousal are examples of primary drives whose drive stimuli are familiar.
There are also many secondary drives
e.g., approval, affection.
Fear is a notable secondary drive.
Secondary drives are learned during socialization.

17. The basic concept in S-R theory is habit
Responses that are instrumental in reducing drive stimuli are reinforced and are likely to be repeated.
This is the basis of reinforcement (reward).
The basic concept in S-R theory is habit
Habit is a learned association between stimuli and a response.

18. Strong stimulation arouses both drive stimuli and internal responses
The relation between drive and habit strength is multiplicative:
R (response) = D X H (habit).
This is necessary since zero drive or zero habit strength will not result in behaviour.
Strong stimulation arouses both drive stimuli and internal responses
e.g., emotional responses, muscular contractions, and thoughts.

19. The Major Concepts of S-R Theory
Dollard and Miller follow Freud in using neurosis as a model for personality processes in general. Thus, they adopt the continuity assumption.
Psychotherapy gives us a ‘window to mental life,’ a way to look in on thinking, learning, unconscious processes, and child development. Necessarily, this must be done with neurotic patients.

20. What is a neurosis?
Mowrer’s concept of the neurotic paradox: behaviour that is self-perpetuating and self-defeating
An particular problem for learning theories to explain.

21. In neurosis, we have to account for:
Its persistence
How it generalizes
Why neurotic people can’t use their minds to solve their problems

22. The nature of learning
Learning is systematic and involves the replacement of responses in an initial hierarchy by learned responses in a resultant hierarchy.
Learning dilemmas cause non-reinforced responses to extinguish so that new responses may occur.

23. Learned responses reduce drive stimuli.
We can classify drives as primary (e.g., hunger) and learned (secondary), which develop in association with primary drives early in life.
There are primary and secondary reinforcements.
Secondary reinforcements acquire their reinforcing ability through association with primary drive reduction in early childhood.

24. Cues determine when and where responses will be made, and which responses will be chosen.
Cues may be external stimuli or produced by the person.
These are response-produced cues.
Cue-producing responses direct much of our thinking and facilitate generalization and discrimination.

25. The basis of neurosis lies in the association of fear with situational cues.
Fear then may become attached to thoughts (of the fearful situation) and to emotional arousal to it.
This is secondary generalization.

26. Fear-reducing responses may include stopping thinking about the source of fear.
This is the S-R theory analysis of repression.

27. An experimental model of fear arousal and avoidance learning
An animal is shocked in one compartment of a 2-compartment apparatus and can escape through open door
Subsequently, when placed in this compartment without shock, it immediately escapes.

28. Animals or people (children) can also be taught what not to do.
Next, the animal must turn a small paddle wheel to escape. It learns to do this to reduce fear.
So, fear is a learned drive and fear reduction a learned reinforcement.
Animals or people (children) can also be taught what not to do.
This is passive avoidance learning.
We train children to inhibit dangerous or hurtful responses.

29. Passive avoidance learning can be enduring if punishment is strong, and it can block normal behaviour.
Fear is important because it can be intense, can be readily become attached to new cues, and because it is a significant the motive in most conflicts.

30. A theory of psychological conflict:
The most significant conflicts in neurosis are between fear and approach motivation (approach-avoidance) and between 2 feared alternatives (avoidance-avoidance).
Conflict sufferers are unable to approach and vacillate at a distance from the feared goal.
They are in misery.

31. Faced with avoidance-avoidance alternatives, the person vacillates at a point equidistant from each feared possibility.

32. Miller’s Conflict Model: Approach-Avoidance Conflict
Four Assumptions:
The tendency to approach a goal increases with nearness (gradient of approach).
The tendency to avoid a feared goal increases with nearness (gradient of avoidance).
The gradient of avoidance is steeper than the gradient of avoidance.
Increasing motivation to approach will increase conflict and misery.

33. The Conflict Model: Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict
Gradients of approach or avoidance of two situations, X and Y.
If X and Y elicit approach, then a person starting at P will go to X since strength of approach gradient at P is greater.
If X and Y elicit avoidance, a person starting at P will retreat to intersection of gradients and vacillate in misery.

35. Personality Development
The learning of neurosis is a model for personality development.
Normal and neurotic personalities start early in life.
Childhood learning is difficult, both for helpless and dependent infants and for parents who lack knowledge and skill.
It’s a pity we don’t have a science of childrearing that can be taught readily to parents.

36. Learning in early childhood is difficult
Learning in early childhood is difficult. Small children have major things to learn under conditions of strong drive and the absence of language.
Essential generalization and discrimination are thus much harder.

37. There are four critical child training situations.
Feeding
Cleanliness training
Early sex training
Anger management training

38. The feeding situation.
Hunger is a strong drive, and parents may not be alert to the intensity their infants experience.
Leaving an infant alone to ‘cry itself out’ is bad practice.
Weaning is a challenge to parents and infants.
This is a critical period for socialization, and poor training can have disastrous lasting consequences.

39. Cleanliness training.
Freud was correct in pointing out that the effects of cleanliness training go beyond the learning of toilet habits.
Cultural attitudes of revulsion tend to make parents impatient and angry.

40. Early sex training.
Sexual exploration and growing up often occur in a family atmosphere of secrecy.
Labeling of drive arousal is difficult.
Emotional intensity may be high.
Embarrassment and guilt may be inculcated by moralistic parents.

41. Anger management training.
Children do become angry
Parents are often intolerant of angry displays
Creates fear and resentment.

42. Correct labelling of feelings, drives, and thoughts is important, but parents sometimes teach their children to mislabel.
Cognitive distortions and defences such as repression may be the result.

43. Dollard and Miller singled out these 4 childrearing situations because they contain the seeds of problems that may appear in adult neurosis.
Remember that we need to know about the conditions of learning.

44. Research
A significant feature of S-R theory is the amount of experimental and field research on its hypotheses:
A major sociological study of racial discrimination in the U.S. South.
Experimental studies of the role of imitation in social learning.
The effects of frustration on aggression.
Experimental studies of learnable drives, especially fear.

45. Experimental tests of conflict theory assumptions used rats
Measured the strength of pull toward food in the goalbox (approach) and away from the same goalbox after shock.
Gradients of approach and avoidance established, with a steeper avoidance gradient
In the approach-avoidance conflict, the animals approached part way, then stopped, showing signs of fear and indecision.
Said Miller: ‘The same thing is observed clinically.’

46. Studies of displacement
Displacement occurs when people cannot respond to a target person and direct their responses to a substitute person.
Some (reduced) gratification is obtained.
Dollard and Miller: displacement is an instance of stimulus generalization,
The response (e.g., aggression) is directed toward a similar substitute target.
We can’t curse schoolteachers or professors, but we can yell at our roommates.

47. The process: the target (e. g
The process: the target (e.g., of anger) is inaccessible because of fear or remoteness.
Anger is directed at the most similar target.
The greater the anger, the more dissimilar the target may be.
This is a gradient of stimulus generalization.

48. Now one rat is removed, and the remaining animal is shocked.
An animal experiment
2 rats are shocked in a small compartment.
A high probability response is to rear up, and it’s likely the rats will strike each other.
This terminates the shock.
Now one rat is removed, and the remaining animal is shocked.
Result: It strikes a small celluloid doll.

49. One of the tests measures attitudes toward Hispanic Americans.
A human experiment.
Men at a remote work camp are promised a rare movie, but have to take some tests first.
In the control group, this is just what happens.
In the experimental group, the tests are prolonged and the movie can’t be shown.
One of the tests measures attitudes toward Hispanic Americans.
Negative attitudes and hostility are greater in the experimental group.

50. S-R Theory in Perspective
An exemplary theory.
It uses process concepts from the psychology of learning.
It casts the clinical observations of psychoanalysis in process terms.
Concepts of the theory were examined in detail in experimental studies.

51. It did have its critics.
Radical behaviourists objected that Dollard and Miller made inferences to unobservable events and didn’t stick to observable behaviour.
Psychoanalysts thought it too simple in its analysis of neurosis, defenses and symptoms, and social behaviour.
Remember that psychoanalysts were deeply committed to Freudian theory and accepted its scientific validity.

52. Cognitive psychology thought the basic unit of S-R theory - the habit - too discrete and mechanical. S-R theory did not deal well with processes and concepts.
S-R theory was a bridge to modern cognitive psychology and made significant contributions.

53. Its analysis of psychotherapy is rich with ideas on how to approach and treat neurotic patients, and how their relearning proceeds.

54. Take-Home Messages
S-R theory is a process theory based on concepts from the psychology of learning.
It does not have structural concepts or emphasize mental content.
Beginnings in the Yale University Institute of Human Relations.
Emphasis on principles and conditions of learning.

55. A research-based theory
Experimental studies of basic hypotheses (e.g., fear as a learnable drive)
Studies of major social questions and problems
Racial prejudice
Frustration and aggression
Imitation and social behaviour
Personality and psychotherapy

56. Personal histories John Dollard PhD, sociology, Univ. of Chicago
Trained in psychoanalysis
Research associate, Yale Institute of Human Relations
Sociologist, anthropologist, psychologist, psychoanalyst
Research and theory building with Neal Miller and others

57. Neal Elgar Miller PhD, Yale University Trained in psychoanalysis
Professor, Yale Institute of Human Relations
Research and theory building with Dollard and other Institute members
Rockefeller University in 1966 to study physiological basis of drives

58. Emphases in S-R theory
The basic elements in learning: drive, cue, response, reward.
Primary and secondary (learned) drives.
Reinforcement reduces drive stimuli.
The central concept of habit:
R = D X H (remember why this is multiplicative)
Internal responses (physiological, cognitive) can produce stimuli with drive properties.

59. Major concepts of S-R theory
Using neurosis and psychotherapy to study personality and personality change
Neurotic paradox: self-defeating and self-perpetuating behaviour
A critical concept: fear, a learnable drive
A critical distinction between primary and secondary (learned) drives
The distinction between primary and secondary reinforcements

60. The basis of neurosis is fear associated with fear-arousing cues.
Cues guide behaviour.
Note both external and response-produced cues.
The basis of neurosis is fear associated with fear-arousing cues.
Defenses and symptoms reduce fear.

61. An experimental test of fear as a learnable drive
Remember passive avoidance learning.
The role of stimulus generalization in fear arousal.

62. A theory of conflict: 4 assumptions Approach-avoidance
Avoidance-avoidance

63. Personality development
4 critical child training situations
Feeding
Cleanliness training
Early sex training
Anger management training
We don’t have a science of child-rearing and don’t convey well what we know to parents.

64. Research Experimental studies of basic processes –
e.g., fear as a learnable drive
Experimental studies of conflict
Studies of displacement:
An animal experiment
A human experiment

65. S-R theory in perspective
An exemplary process.
The theory of personality applied to the clinical observations of psychoanalysis.
A wealth of support in experimental and field studies.

66. A perceptive analysis of psychotherapy.
Criticisms
Behaviourists: too inferential
Psychoanalysts : too simple
Cognitive psychology: too mechanical
A theory at the transition from behaviourism to cognitive psychology that made many contributions.
A perceptive analysis of psychotherapy.